Rosetta West Mixes Mysticism and Mayhem with “God of the Dead” Album

Chicago-based blues rock band Rosetta West returns with a powerful new offering, “God of the Dead,” a 15-track odyssey that travels through raw feeling, spiritual contemplation, and genre-mixing sonic landscapes. Rosetta West builds on a sound that has blues roots and incorporates world folk influences, high art psych rock inspirations, and maybe even a dash of mystic tone. The band will continue to grow with a bigger picture that remains wild yet somehow calculated.

The new record from Rosetta West, God of the Dead, is led by multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Joseph Demagore, with contributions from a notable group of musicians who changed throughout the album: "the Reckoning Band" featuring the rotating rhythm section of Mike Weaver, Nathan Q. Scratch, and bass contributor of many years, Orpheus Jones. From furious punk explosions to mournful piano ballads, the varied approach of the album isn't merely surprising; it is magically stitched together. Songs like "Midnight" featuring guest bassist Louis Constant and "Boneyard Blues" featuring drummer Caden Cratch, illustrate Rosetta West's ability to juxtapose grit and poetry. 

If the last release from the band, Gravity Sessions, was born from a place of minimalism, God of the Dead is expansive both in the amount of space the music occupies and the effort it takes to work through themes of life, loss, and transcendence. It doesn't follow trends; it invents them. Each song functions like a ritual, and every riff is unexplored territory; a reckoning.

With God of the Dead, Rosetta West demonstrates that being underground doesn’t mean undetected; it means refusing to apologize for being real. This is blues rock, way too spirited to be caged.